Friday, February 17, 2017

Roasted Garlic Tomato Spread

A friend of mine gave me a really great tip about roasting garlic for garlic bread a while ago, and I recently found myself wanting to make something else with roasted garlic since it has a such a complex set of flavors. I came up with this delicious spread that is a little sweet and a lot savory, with a hint of spice. It goes great on crusty bread like a baguette or ciabatta loaf. I'll also be suggesting it with a couple recipes coming up that I think it pairs well with.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes–1 hour

Ingredients:

3 bulbs of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
½ oz of sundried tomatoes
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Crusty bread

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. (Hint: this is a great recipe for a toaster oven since it uses such small amounts.)

Cut off the top of each bulb of garlic so that each clove is exposed. Pour one third of the olive oil on each bulb and gently work into the bulb. Wrap each bulb in tinfoil and roast for 45 min–1 hour.

I like my garlic to be pretty roasted, since it gets sweeter as the existing sugars caramelize. I recommend cooking for 45 minutes and then checking every 5 minutes till it is as dark as you would like. Once the garlic is cooked to your liking, remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool.

Put the sundried tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil into the carafe of your blender. Once the garlic is cool enough to be handled, simply squeeze each bulb into your blender. Blend until a smooth paste is formed. Feel free to add more extra virgin olive oil if you need to make it a little more spreadable.

Toast or grill some slices of your bread of choice, spread, and serve. This is pretty powerful stuff so a little goes a long way!

2 comments:

  1. Looks good to me! Since you're only using half an oz of sun dried tomatoes, this feels like a "tomato-sweetened-garlic-spread" which, imho is a GOOD thing. I love how there are no added spices or salt, and all the flavors come from the natural ingredients-- dried and roasted as they are! Looking forward to trying this one :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because sundried tomatoes are so tangy and spicy, most of the sweetness actually comes from the roasting of the garlic. It isn't much tomato, but it brings a huge amount of flavor.
      I'm glad you like the look of it and I hoped it worked for you!

      Delete